Ron Crews

Conservative activists were upinarms last week when Judicial Watch obtained a Defense Department guide on extremism [PDF] which listed the Southern Poverty Law Center under a section called “optional reading” and that said that some people may have considered the Founding Fathers to be extremists. Of course, fighting to secede from the British crown and establishing a republic may well have been considered extreme for its time, especially from the British perspective, but right-wing commentators interpreted the memo as arguing that the Founders were extremists who should be shunned.

When Rick Wiles hosted Ron Crews of the Chaplains Alliance for Religious Liberty yesterday to discuss the material, they concluded that the SPLC must have designed the memo itself.

“According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, we’re the bad guys, we’re the extremists and we need to be rooted out,” Crews alleged.

“An extremist is anybody who does not believe the socialist-communist-revolutionary garbage that’s espoused by the Southern Poverty Law Center,” Wiles charged. “And if you don’t agree with their extremist viewpoint you’re the extremist when actually the rest of us are mainstream and they are the radicals.”

Ron Crews of the Chaplains Alliance for Religious Liberty likes to conceal his overthetop rhetoric about gays and lesbians serving openly in the military by claiming that he simply wants to defend the freedom of chaplains to oppose same-sex marriage, which he claims is under attack. During his appearance on the Janet Parshall’s radio show In The Market yesterday, however, Crews continued to simply make anti-gay statements without making a serious case as to how the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’s repeal has jeopardized the military’s standing or the rights of chaplains.

Parshall lauded his efforts by warning listeners that “the removal of this [Don’t Ask Don’t Tell] policy has opened a Pandora’s box” and that the repeal was “unfair.”

Crews claimed that the military is now being “used to promote the radical homosexual agenda,” turning it into a “social pawn” rather than using it to “fight our nation’s wars.” He later reminisced about a time when everyone understood that “homosexuality was not good for the order and discipline of our military” and that people “could not get a security clearance” if they were gay or “went to homosexual activities or gay bars.”

This administration has chosen to use our military to promote a radical social agenda. For the very first time in our nation’s history, the military is being used as a social pawn rather than for what it’s intended to do: to fight our nation’s wars and to make sure our boundaries remain safe. But this administration in urging Congress and pressuring Congress, and it was done in a lame duck session of Congress two years ago in December of 2010 when the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was passed into law, and then there was a series of briefings that were given to the military to get ready for the repeal to go into effect and then our Service Chiefs had to ratify it and send a note to the president, and that was done just about two years ago, in September two years ago. Now for the first time our nation’s military has been used to promote the radical homosexual agenda to legitimize and to say that homosexuality is okay.

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The military existed for the first two hundred plus years with a real clear standard, that homosexuality was not good for the order and discipline of our military. Furthermore, if you were known to be homosexual or went to homosexual activities or gay bars or whatever you could not get a security clearance, that was a part of the criteria of every officer had to have a security clearance, so all of those policies have had to be changed.

Chaplains Alliance for Religious Liberty head Ron Crews yesterday in the Washington Times said that the new study which once again proved that the end of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell has had no negative impact on the military since the repeal was certified one year ago is mere “propaganda” that “should be shredded post-haste.” However, Crews does not even attempt to rebut the study or offer any evidence for why the report “has no connection to reality.” He did blame the repeal policy for one incidence of potential harassment and supposed uneasiness among chaplains who disapprove of homosexuality, and also inexplicably considered the performance of same-sex ceremonies on bases as an attack on religious freedom. Crews labeled the repeal a “threat to freedom” and an “assault on the constitutionally protected freedom of our service members” by turning them into guinea pigs for a “radical sexual experiment.”

The American armed forces exist to defend our nation, not to conduct social science lab experiments in which our troops serve as human subjects. Try telling that to this administration. The first anniversary of the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” Sept. 20, has come and gone. Now, there is mounting evidence that proves our warnings were not idle chatter. The threat to freedom posed by this radical sexual experiment on our military is real: It is grave and it is growing.

Activists inside and outside our government who pushed the repeal have deployed a smoke screen around the fact that once the military was forced to exalt homosexuality in the ranks, the all-too-foreseen consequence reared its ugly head.

Senior military officials have allowed personnel in favor of repeal to speak to media while those who have concerns have been ordered to be silent. Two airmen were publicly harassed in a Post Exchange food court as they were privately discussing their concerns about the impact of repeal. A chaplain was encouraged by military officials to resign his commission unless he could “get in line with the new policy,” demonstrating no tolerance for that chaplain’s religious viewpoint. Another chaplain was threatened with early retirement, and then reassigned to be more “closely supervised” because he had expressed concerns with the policy change, again demonstrating no tolerance for that chaplain’s religious viewpoint.

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The Navy has allowed sailors openly engaged in homosexual behavior to choose their bunkmates. Imagine in this new age of “tolerance” if a sailor asked to be moved from a close-quarters berthing area because of his concern about another sailor’s sexual appetites. We already know what would happen, because tolerance has never been a two-way street.

Obviously, the recent “study” (aka propaganda) claiming that the repeal went off without a hitch should be shredded post-haste. It has no connection to reality.

This is just the first wave in the first year of the assault on the constitutionally protected freedom of our service members. Remember, the groups that forced their sexual experiment on the armed forces represent the lesbian, homosexual, bisexual and transgender community. It’s only a matter of time before a man who claims to be transgender demands to be placed with women during training, in the showers and in the barracks. The women in the units will have no recourse, especially if their objection to living, changing, bathing and bunking with a man is based on sincerely held religious beliefs. They would have two choices: Either accept this outrageous imposition silently or be charged with bigotry, hatred, intolerance and every other name the advocates of this agenda can throw at them. Neither choice is acceptable. When “sensitivity training” is in full force, these women just might face discipline and punitive separation merely for speaking up and requesting a reasonable measure of privacy and protection of their religious freedom.

Ron Crews of the Chaplains Alliance for Religious Liberty released a statement that the “radical sexual agenda in our military” is leading to significant “negative consequences,” citing one example of possible sexual harassment, same-sex ceremonies on bases and the supposed “silencing” of chaplains and DADT supporters:

No Cause for Celebration: DADT Repeal Immediately Creates Major Problems for Service Members

Approaching the first anniversary of the repeal of the so-called DADT policy, mounting evidence demonstrates the negative consequences of implementing a radical sexual agenda in our military.

“The American armed forces exist to defend our nation, not as social experiment lab in which our troops serve as human subjects,” said Chaplain (Colonel Retired) Ron Crews, ED of CALL. ”While many will ignore the negative impacts, or pretend that they don’t exist, threats to our troops’ freedom are mounting.”

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“This list of problems and incidents that have arisen mere months after this administration imposed its will on the armed forces is disturbing to say the least, and we know it is only the beginning,” said Crews. “Compounding the outrage, service members are not free to speak out about these matters. This ensures that distrust in the ranks will increase and morale will decrease as the number of silenced victims grows.”

Focus on the Family’s political arm CitizenLink also said in a post quoting Crews and calling for Congress to pass a GOP-backed bill banning same-sex ceremonies on military property, which they said would preserve religious freedom by barring all chaplains from performing such ceremonies:

Crew said that a military religious freedom act introduced in January, House Resolution 3828, would help military personnel greatly.

“It’s a right-of-conscience clause that would provide protection to military personnel, so they would not be affected by their opposition to the repeal,” he explained.

If passed, H.R. 3828 would protect members of the Armed Forces who hold religious or moral convictions concerning “the appropriate and inappropriate expression of human sexuality” from discrimination or punishment for their beliefs.

The bill seeks to protect chaplains from being ordered to perform any services or ceremonies contrary to their faith, while preventing any same-sex marriage ceremonies from being performed on military posts, in accordance with the federal Defense of Marriage Act.

Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council, who predicted an increase in rape if the policy was repealed, pivoted away from his group’s hysterical claims to instead focus on possible same-sex marriages in the military, a result of the “radical sexual and social agenda” pushed by “homosexual activists.” Sprigg also cited a survey from the Military Times, but didn’t mention that the same poll found negative views of the repeal among service members are declining.

He also dismissed claims that the military would have “completely collapsed in the first year after repeal” since “our service members are too professional to allow that to happen,” but FRC president Tony Perkins did in fact predict the reinstitution of the draft and that congressmen who voted for the repeal will have “blood on their hands.”

Since eight servicemembers reported harm from both circumstances (a homosexual “coming out” and one joining their unit), a total of 36 separate individuals reported such harm. The Palm Center chose to emphasize that this was only 4.5% of all those surveyed—failing to mention that it represents twenty percent of those who had a homosexual “come out” or join their unit. Twenty percent represents a significant risk of harm for the units involved—merely to advance the goals of the sexual revolution. Damage to good order, discipline, morale, and unit cohesion need not be universal to be unacceptable.

In the same Military Times survey, 8.4% of respondents said that repeal made them less likely to remain in the military, while only 3.3% said it would make them more likely to remain.

The Palm Center report almost completely ignores the most significant harms that have become immediately apparent in the first year since repeal. Predictions that the use of the military to advance a radical social/sexual agenda would place us on a “slippery slope” have clearly come true. Furthermore, assurances given in the November 2010 report of the Pentagon’s Comprehensive Review Working Group (CRWG) regarding the limited impact of repeal have not been fulfilled. Since the CRWG report was to a large extent the basis for the Congressional vote for repeal in December of 2010, it can even be argued that repeal was adopted under false pretenses.

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Has America’s military completely collapsed in the first year after repeal? Of course not—our servicemembers are too professional to allow that to happen. The military is clearly being used, however, to advance a radical sexual and social agenda. The Palm Center cited one individual who stated that repeal “will help facilitate the slow cultural change towards greater acceptance” of homosexuality.

The purpose of our armed forces, however, is not to “facilitate cultural change.” It is to fight and win wars. By demanding that it do more than that, homosexual activists have undermined the single-minded focus that is necessary for military effectiveness.

Ron Crews, the executive director of the Chaplains Alliance for Religious Liberty and a former Republican politician, appeared alongside Family Research Council president Tony Perkins today on Washington Watch Weekly to push back against reports showing that only a small number of chaplains say they have been negatively impacted by the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. While the Religious Right’s prediction that the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell would have catastrophic consequences on the military and national security contradicts nearlyalloftheevidence, Crews insisted that President Obama and his appointees are “turning our military into a social experiment to promote the cause of the homosexual agenda in this country” at “the expense ultimately of what our military is intended to do and that is to provide for the protection of this country, to defend this nation.” Later, Crews said that the military may experience a significant decline in “retention and recruitment” because parents will not want their children to serve in a “two-man barrack, a two person barrack, where they may be placed with a homosexual soldier.”

Perkins: The Department of Defense is kind of suppressing these differing views, only kind of giving a platform to those who are embracing this new policy, where do you think that pressure is coming from within the Department of Defense?

Crews: It’s coming from the very top. The senior leaders of the military are all presidential appointees, the senior attorney, Jeh Johnson, of the military is a presidential appointee. So these senior leaders fall in line with the president and his policy, who is turning our military into a social experiment, I believe, at the expense ultimately of what our military is intended to do and that is to provide for the protection of this country, to defend this nation. The current administration is turning our military into a social experiment to promote the cause of the homosexual agenda in this country. I am very concerned about the direction that the current administration has been leading our military over the last couple of years.

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Crews: The jury is still out. I’m concerned about long-term retention and recruitment. How many moms and dads are going to want their children to go into a military where their son or daughter may be in a barrack that they have no control over, in a two-man barrack, a two person barrack, where they may be placed with a homosexual soldier and they have no recourse, so we’re concerned.

Ron Crews Posts Archive

Conservative activists were up in arms last week when Judicial Watch obtained a Defense Department guide on extremism [PDF] which listed the Southern Poverty Law Center under a section called “optional reading” and that said that some people may have considered the Founding Fathers to be extremists. Of course, fighting to secede from the British crown and establishing a republic may well have been considered extreme for its time, especially from the British perspective, but right-wing commentators interpreted the memo as arguing that the Founders were extremists who should be... MORE >

Ron Crews of the Chaplains Alliance for Religious Liberty likes to conceal his over the top rhetoric about gays and lesbians serving openly in the military by claiming that he simply wants to defend the freedom of chaplains to oppose same-sex marriage, which he claims is under attack. During his appearance on the Janet Parshall’s radio show In The Market yesterday, however, Crews continued to simply make anti-gay statements without making a serious case as to how the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’s repeal has jeopardized the military’s standing or the rights of chaplains... MORE >

Chaplains Alliance for Religious Liberty head Ron Crews yesterday in the Washington Times said that the new study which once again proved that the end of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell has had no negative impact on the military since the repeal was certified one year ago is mere “propaganda” that “should be shredded post-haste.” However, Crews does not even attempt to rebut the study or offer any evidence for why the report “has no connection to reality.” He did blame the repeal policy for one incidence of potential harassment and supposed uneasiness... MORE >

On this day last year, the military certified the repeal of the discriminatory Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy after Congress overturned the policy. Religious Right activists warned that the military will suffer as a result, however, their ominous predictions failed to materialize as studies show that the new policy is working and benefiting the military.
Consequently, it wasn’t a surprise that anti-gay groups were largely quiet today on the anniversary as their warnings about an exodus of soldiers, a drop in enlistments and a return of the draft were clearly wrong.
Ron Crews of... MORE >

Ron Crews, the executive director of the Chaplains Alliance for Religious Liberty and a former Republican politician, appeared alongside Family Research Council president Tony Perkins today on Washington Watch Weekly to push back against reports showing that only a small number of chaplains say they have been negatively impacted by the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. While the Religious Right’s prediction that the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell would have catastrophic consequences on the military and national security contradicts nearly all of the evidence, Crews... MORE >